The Stock Market is King and Cash is the Joker

To paraphrase Socrates, we know enough to know that we actually know very little. We were reminded of this on Saturday morning when we woke to see global markets soared on the news that the US unemployment rate had dropped on better than expected employment growth.

This confused us. We thought that bad news was good news. And that good news was bad news. On this logic, the good news on employment should’ve been bad news for the stock market. A lower unemployment rate should bring an end to the Fed’s easy money quicker than expected. So the market should’ve tanked.

But it didn’t. It went up. By a lot. Good news IS good news. And it seems that bad news is still good news too. Because soon after the employment data came out, we learned that activity in the US services sector came in weaker than expected in April. And the employment sub-component of the report reflected a slowdown taking place, in stark contrast to the earlier, bullish jobs release.

And to top it off, US factory orders contracted by 4% during April, again below expectations.

So the world’s largest economy is slowing down and creating jobs, which lead to higher stock prices and greater wealth for the few who actually own stocks. But instead of spending that magically created ‘wealth’, the lucky few roll the dice again and punt on stocks going higher. And the stocks oblige, whether the news is good or bad.

Stocks continue to make new highs as the torrent of money created by central banks goes into ‘things’ (but not gold!). In a slow growth environment, the share market is king and cash is the joker.

Such is the world created by the central banker as supreme monetary architect.

According to the article on US unemployment on Bloomberg the word “possible” was place in front of the sentence “US unemployment fall”.

Vote Up0Vote Down Reply

4 years 9 months ago

Letters will be edited for clarity, punctuation, spelling and length.
Abusive or off-topic comments will not be posted. We will not post all comments.
If you would prefer to email the editor, you can do so by sending an email to letters@marketsandmoney.com.au